Immunotherapy treatments generally involve inducing an immune response against a disease-associated antigen in a subject by sensitizing the subject's immune system to the antigen. The immune response often is induced by a vaccine that bears the antigen. Upon treatment with the vaccine, the immune system attacks cells bearing the antigen, which leads to a therapeutic effect. The immunity induced by vaccines depends largely on the efficiency of the antigen presenting cells (APC) that process and present the antigen. Dendritic cells (DCs) are APCs that can be responsible for vaccine efficacy by capturing and processing antigen and stimulating T cell immunity. It is possible to generate ex vivo functional DCs from a subject's peripheral blood monocytes or CD34 haemopoietic stem cells. In ex vivo approaches, dendritic cells generated from a patient's peripheral blood monocytes or CD34 haemopoietic stem cells can be loaded with a disease-associated antigen and reinfused into the patient with the aim of generating effective anti-disease immunity.